"I arise every morning torn between the desire to save the world and the desire to savor the world. It makes it hard to plan the day." --E. B. White

Monday, March 3, 2008

Taking to the Air

Each year we make a couple of trips that require flying. Invariably on those flights I flip through the in-flight magazine. I mean, c'mon, it's right there, it's glossy, there are crosswords and sudoku, and you can find out what advertisers are trying to sell to business executives (answer: steak houses, matchmaking services, golf courses, vacation resorts, a Ph.D. lady selling pheromones, and some seminar to teach you the art of negotiation).

But just now I learned of something I would actually read in one of those magazines: David Sibley announced the publication of an essay he wrote for Delta-Sky magazine. Yes, that David Sibley, and yes, a real airline that probably gets dozens of readers a year! Thousands of travelers a year, but how many break away from their laptop or DVD player to read?

Regardless, it's not a fluff piece about how cute birds are. David lays out the wonderment of migration, the challenges birds face on their epic journeys, and gives the non-birding reader something to think about:

You travel for a reason, and with some assurance that your travel will be successful, but what if you flew from Portland, Oregon, to Springfield, Missouri, only to find that the Springfield airport had been turned into a shopping mall and there was nowhere to land? What would happen to the Baird’s sandpipers if that lake in Ecuador was drained for agriculture?

Maybe David's piece will make an inroad to not-yet-conservation-minded, captive-audience readers who haven't really "got it" yet, and it's all about winning those hearts and minds, isn't it? Read the full article here.

4 comments:

Hi Peggy - thank you for dropping by, and welcome to my humble and periodic spoutings! I look forward to "conversations" via the comments, here or over on your blog(s). It's great to find so many people with similar interests!

Funny, I was on Delta recently and read part of the mag, yet missed that article. I didn't know about it until after I landed. However, I also flew US Airways this week and there was an article on the Birds of Costa Rica in it. I sense the beginning of a movement...

Hi Mike - Part of the movement you feel, I suspect, are the birds heading north! But I hope, and do believe, you are right: more and more folks connecting with nature in a positive way. Hopefully that will translate to improved environmental standards that citizens demand of their representatives in Washington and the businesses they patronize.

About My Blog

I write about nature and the outdoors, mostly relating to our local patch of the world in the Southern Tier of New York, but also our periodic travels to elsewhere. As a "mad-keen birder" I mostly focus on birds, as a father I often focus on nature seen through the eyes of a child. Anything that arouses my curiosity is fair game.

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